Error message

Food Waste

Introduction by

NRDC

Imagine leaving the grocery store with five bags of food, dropping two in the parking lot, and never bothering to pick them up. Seems crazy, but that’s exactly what we are doing in the U.S. today – leaving 40 percent of all of our food uneaten. Food is simply too good, and too important and resource intensive, to waste. In fact, about one quarter of all the water consumed in the U.S. is used to grow food that never gets eaten.

Fortunately, wasting less food is not hard. It simply involves loving it a little more and paying a little more attention to how we buy, store, and cook it. Next time you’re at the check out counter, take a second look in your cart to see if you really have time to cook and eat all that food this week. Go through your fridge and freeze anything you won’t eat in time. Have a leftovers night for dinner, or get creative and make a “fridge clean out concoction” meal with all those extra ingredients that need using up. Let the businesses you frequent know that you care about them wasting less too, whether it means offering smaller portions, running out of things occasionally, or selling fruit and vegetables with a little more character.

If we love our food, if we value how much it took to get it to our plates, we will naturally waste less of it. So with that, bon appetit!